


Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Erectile Dysfunction, M/M, Medication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 13:38:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://badsexfest.livejournal.com/">badsexfest</a>: <em>PTSD, one of them can't get it up (because of trauma, meds, injury, etc.)</em></p>
<p>Brad's coming home, and Nate is a little worried about the welcome-back sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Riverlight for beta!
> 
> Also, apologies for not working out the exact psychological/pharmacological/etc. details of what's going on with Nate's dick. It's a PWP.

Nate had a lot of reasons to resent DADT, some so vast they didn't bear thinking about, some small and niggling. They changed priority on a pretty regular basis. Most of the time, when Brad was coming home, Nate focused on hating the fact that he couldn't go meet Brad on base, or even at the airport. That was sort of a routine bitterness by now.

Today he was newly, furiously conscious of being deprived of the drive home from the airport. It was--would have been, theoretically--a good transition to being together again, private but free of any danger of getting distracted with welcome-home sex. They could talk without making eye contact but also without the danger of either of them getting absorbed in anything else. It would have been an ideal time and place to bring up such topics as _the thing I haven't been telling you while you were deployed because I was hoping it would go away before you got home._

Nate checked the status of Brad's flight again--still nearly an hour out--and then went for a run, trying to burn off his anger and the nervous anticipation that underlay it. He was almost home when his phone vibrated with a text, and he knew it would be from Brad, knew that it would say he was on the ground. Nate sprinted the rest of the way, not slowing down until he was unlocking the door. He stood just inside for a minute, taking long, ragged breaths, and then headed straight into the shower. 

He washed thoroughly--there had _better_ be welcome-home sex in his immediate future, even if it wasn't going to go as smoothly as it might have with a car ride to talk things over beforehand. 

Nate gave his dick a soap-slicked pull and then another, and then shook his head ruefully. No, no last minute reprieve; despite the electric anticipation he could feel all over his skin, he wasn't going to suddenly be able to get it up, even for a special occasion. Nate rinsed off and finished his shower.

He was drying off when he heard the tiny telltale sound. He grinned, rolled his eyes, and finished toweling off. Nate brushed his teeth thoroughly, counting out a dutiful minute in his head. He made sure his towel was hung up neatly and the shower curtain was closed. When he stepped--naked, minty-fresh, and only slightly damp--into the bedroom, Brad was leaning against the dresser with a huge grin on his face.

"Did you even tell me your actual flight this time?" Nate asked, unable to help smiling back. "Because we talked about that."

"I swear," Brad said. "There was a tailwind, we got in ahead of schedule. I waited to text you, that's all."

Nate made himself close the distance slowly, with a swagger every bit as sure as Brad's comfortable slouch, and never mind the anxiety coiling down his spine and the futile ache of want in his balls. Six months of waiting, and even if he couldn't come he was starving for touch. 

"And you're still wearing clothes why, exactly?"

Brad's smile widened as Nate stopped just short of contact. Nate braced his hands on the dresser to either side of Brad's hips and raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. That was one advantage to his little difficulty: Nate could play it cool, even naked.

"Hey, you just got in from running," Brad said. Nate didn't bother asking how Brad knew; his shoes were still by the door, the soles would still be sweat-damp. And there wasn't any other logical reason for Nate to have been taking a shower at this time of day, when he was expecting Brad home. "Maybe you want to go out, load up on protein."

"Don't have to go out to do that," Nate smirked, pointedly holding eye contact rather than looking Brad up and down. 

As Brad's answering smirk widened, Nate dropped his hands to the top drawer of the dresser and jerked it out to collide with the backs of Brad's thighs, making Brad stumble into him. Brad threw his arms over Nate's shoulders for balance as Nate went on. 

"There's plenty of food in the fridge. If you're worried about my protein intake you can go make me a sandwich. If you want your dick sucked, you should take your pants off."

"God, I love how romantic you get when we've been apart for a while," Brad muttered, low enough that Nate could feel the rumble of the words in his chest before Brad closed the last sliver of distance between them with a kiss.

Nate felt himself relax as he opened his mouth to Brad's. This, at least, felt just as good as it always had. He licked into the heat of Brad's mouth, closing his arms around Brad as Brad's arms tightened around him. After a breath or two Brad was up against the dresser again, letting Nate crowd him back as he made soft hungry noises into Nate's mouth. 

Nate bit down on Brad's lip instead of his own to stifle the desperate sounds he wanted to make--fuck, he wanted this, wanted Brad, wanted to be _capable_ \--but no matter how little his dick cooperated there was this, his body with Brad's, these dragging kisses at the end of their long separation. 

Nate slid his hands down to the hem of Brad's shirt and tugged it up, breaking away from kissing Brad just long enough to haul the shirt up and off. Brad's hands settled at the small of Nate's back when they were free again, and Nate shivered at the skin-on-skin contact of his chest on Brad's, the expanse of Brad's bare skin under his hands. The rub of Brad's jeans against his bare thighs was nearly as good. He tried not to let his dick touch Brad; he didn't want to give himself away sooner than he had to.

Nate focused on kissing, drawing Brad on, sucking at his lower lip in the way that made his breath stop. Brad got with the program pretty quickly; Nate could feel the rhythm of his breathing changing as he got turned on, felt the little hitches of his hips that meant Brad was getting hard. Nate tapped his thumbs against the top of Brad's jeans. Brad made an exasperated noise, but reached down to open his own pants.

Nate inched back slightly, angling his body away but keeping the kiss, keeping his eyes closed. He felt Brad's familiar twist of hips as he dropped his pants, the added heat of his naked body. He recognized the feel and the sound as Brad jacked himself a couple of times. 

He felt the brush of Brad's knuckles against his stomach as Brad reached for the place where Nate's dick would have been if he was hard, and then Brad jerked back, breaking the kiss and looking down. His face went smooth enough to send a chill down Nate's spine: it was the blank calm of crisis, of danger, of--

Brad's hand closed on his dick, engulfing it easily in its totally limp state. Brad was looking down at his hand, at Nate's dick. The lack of eye contact, and the way Brad's sudden palpable calm felt like combat, made it paradoxically easier for Nate to sound calm when he spoke.

"So when I told you that the new medication was working really well and I was feeling a lot better," Nate said lightly. "I neglected to mention a couple of side effects."

Brad's eyes flicked up to his, but the carefully steady look didn't ease.

"Occasional dizzy spells," Nate explained. "Until right this second, that was actually the most annoying one."

Brad's hand was moving on his dick, his thumb sweeping over the head, his fingers working in a slow, gentle rhythm that felt good in a weirdly dead-end way, like having a nipple stroked but more so. Nate could already feel the familiar associated frustration swamping the actual sensation. 

Brad held his gaze, and though his expression barely changed Nate thought he could see all the things Brad wasn't bothering to say out loud: first there was _Why didn't you tell me?_ , but that would be obvious. They'd had little enough contact while Brad was deployed, and there had been no point wasting it on this. 

Then the _But what about...?_ because they'd had phone sex a few times since Nate switched medications (which had, in the cruelest of ironies, gotten him healthy enough to actually be interested in sex at the same time it took away his ability to have any that was satisfying on more than a philosophical level), but that was obvious, too. Nate had faked it on the phone, because he wanted to, because he liked getting Brad off.

There was a slight quirk of Brad's lips and an up-and-down look that Nate thought signaled Brad realizing that this meant that Nate had stuck with the medication despite the temptation to go off it to get his dick back. That settled into a long, considering gaze: _do we have to talk about it, do we have to talk about it_ right now, _what the hell do I say about my boyfriend's dick being broken instead of his brain_.

Brad looked down again, loosening his hand from Nate's dick, and then he poked it with one finger and said, slightly sing-song, "Semper Gumby."

_Always flexible_. 

"Yeah," Nate said, barely keeping down the bubble of too-wild laughter he could feel in his throat. "Still a Marine where it counts."

Brad snorted, and Nate leaned in to give him a brief, hard kiss in gratitude for saying precisely the right thing. Brad settled his hand on Nate's hip, tugging him closer again, and deepened the kiss to something that let Nate forget, just for a minute. 

When they broke apart to breathe Brad said in a low voice, "I do still want my dick sucked, though. I took my pants off and everything."

"Stop it with the sentimental shit, you'll make me cry," Nate replied, and elected not to contemplate how much crying he'd done for less reason than that before they finally got his fucking dose right. His not-fucking-anybody dose, as it turned out, but he put that thought away and met Brad's eyes again as he closed his hand on Brad's dick. Brad was only half-hard, which told him everything Brad's expression and words hadn't about how thrown Brad was by this. 

"You want it right now, like this?"

"You make it sound so tempting," Brad muttered, finally starting to smile a little. "But no, I've been waiting too long not to be in a fucking bed--in _our_ bed, with you, lying the fuck down."

"Let's make your dreams come true," Nate agreed, letting go of Brad and stepping aside to usher him toward the bed. Brad threw himself down, starfishing for a moment as he rubbed his face into Nate's pillow and his dick against the mattress. Nate stood aside and watched, giving his own dick an idle, pointless squeeze as he stared at the flex of Brad's ass, the newly sharpened lines of pale and tan. He felt the weird surge of affection he always had for the realization that Brad's tattoo was more awful in the flesh than he remembered, every single time.

Nate leaned down, aiming to smack Brad's ass, but Brad squirmed over just in time, catching Nate's wrist and tugging him down. Nate let himself be pulled, half-falling onto the bed across Brad's knees. Brad squirmed back, getting comfy, and Nate shifted to kneel between his legs as Brad sat up against the headboard, propped on both pillows.

"Sure you're comfy?" Nate asked, stroking Brad's dick lightly, feeling it twitch and harden under his fingers. "You want me to get you a beer?"

"No need to get me drunk," Brad assured him, folding his arms. "You're easily the hottest thing I've seen in months."

Nate raised his eyebrows and let himself take a long deliberate look at Brad, spread out for him like a feast, like water in the desert. He kept his hand moving, slow and light, and let his eyes linger on Brad's dick- as it rose to his touch. 

"You too," Nate allowed, and folded down to taste him. 

Nate's eyes closed at the first touch of his tongue to Brad's cock, the smell-taste-feel of it all combining to make him shudder in helpless, futile desire. He opened his mouth, taking in the head without further teasing, and Brad let out a long breath. Nate opened his eyes and caught Brad pressing his hands hard to his thighs, keeping himself still. Nate tightened his hand on the base of Brad's cock and closed his eyes again as he went down further, working his tongue over the familiar sweet spots, learning the feel of Brad in his mouth all over again after so long without.

Brad twitched a little under him, but when Nate looked again Brad had folded his arms behind his head. He was giving Nate free rein, and Nate decided to make use of it. He kept his left hand on Brad's cock and let the right wander, cupping his balls, tracing the crease of his groin, scratching lightly down his thigh. At the same time he kept his mouth working on Brad, slowly, making each suck and lick a lingering exploration. 

He was out of practice, so the ache in his jaw started up pretty quickly, but he didn't let it distract him. He focused on Brad's reactions, the twitch of his dick between Nate's lips, the little catches of breath that meant Nate was getting it right. He'd always gotten off on getting Brad off like this, and it all felt the same now, with the extra thrill of learning him all over again after an absence--except that Nate's dick refused to get hard. He did his best to ignore his own body, focusing all his attention on Brad's, which did work right, which he _could_ get off.

Nate could feel the tense and release of Brad's quads, resisting the urge to thrust. He curled his hand around Brad's balls, feeling them tighten, but Brad was still holding back. Nate pulled off and stroked Brad slowly, his hand moving easily on the spit-slickness. Brad's eyes were nearly closed, and he was flushed bright from his forehead to the middle of his chest. Nate leaned forward--Brad squeezed his eyes shut--and Nate bit down lightly on Brad's nipple, flushed dark and peaked, just at the border of the pink flush of Brad's skin. Nate followed the bite with a lick, which won him a little half-voiced noise from Brad. He was still holding still, only letting his hips rock by a couple of degrees even now that he had Nate's hand instead of his mouth. 

"You going easy on me, Brad?"

Brad opened one eye, and after only the briefest hesitation he brought a hand down to shove his palm against Nate's forehead. "Shut the fuck up and suck my dick."

"Yes, Sergeant Instructor," Nate returned with a grin, and this time when he went down Brad's hand followed him. 

Brad still didn't really rush him. His hand just rested on Nate's hand as Nate lowered his mouth onto Brad's cock. This time Nate didn't try to do anything in particular with his mouth except take as much in as he could, and when his lips met the top of his left hand Nate took his hand away, laying it flat on Brad's thigh. Brad's hand on his head slid down to the back of his neck, holding him gently but firmly in place, and then Brad started to move, fucking steadily into Nate's mouth, the head of his cock bumping the back of Nate's throat. 

Nate couldn't taste or feel or smell anything but Brad, couldn't do anything but this, and he couldn't help the low moan that welled out of his throat. Brad grunted as he shoved up harder, his hand tightening on Nate's neck, and Nate could feel that he was getting close now; he wasn't just humoring Nate. Nate sucked as best he could, swallowing at the top of Brad's stroke, and Brad's movements got rougher, shoving his cock into Nate's mouth faster and faster, still on a steady rhythm almost until the end. Nate could feel Brad's orgasm coming through all the familiar tells--the little punched-out sounds that escaped him, the way his legs tensed and his fingers dug into Nate's skin.

Nate felt a wild, giddy triumph, and was dimly aware of his own hips rocking down instinctively against the bed. Brad said his name, sharp and clear, a second before he was coming in Nate's mouth. Nate didn't bother trying to swallow, just let his mouth go slack around Brad's dick while Brad fucked his way through his orgasm. When Brad's hand loosened from the nape of his neck, Nate gave his dick a last long lick, which turned into two or three licks and Brad swatting lightly at the side of his head.

Nate grinned and stopped, letting himself cough a little and wiping his face on the sheets. He slumped down over Brad's legs, his cheek on Brad's stomach, and tried to be satisfied with the warm relaxation of Brad's body, tried to ignore the thrumming unsatisfied want still speeding his own heartbeat. He could feel the heavy throb in his dick, which felt swollen and sensitive and only half-hard. Nate knew by now that it was better to ignore it than to try and fail yet again, but no matter how he tried to match his breathing to Brad's, to join him in the afterglow, he couldn't help _wanting_.

Brad reached down and grabbed Nate by the upper arm, hauling him up so that they were face-to-face. Nate settled on his side, propping one knee on Brad's thigh to keep himself from grinding uselessly against Brad's hip as Brad tugged him into a soft, easy kiss. Nate reminded himself to let Brad set the pace, not to push, and he managed to stick with that right up until Brad was sucking on Nate's bottom lip as his hand came down on Nate's ass, jerking him into full-body contact.

Nate's breath went out of him as he ground helplessly against Brad, and Brad's mouth left his just enough for Brad to say in a low, warm voice, "Do I get to go down on you now?"

Nate froze, wincing, and tried to pull back against Brad's suddenly rock-solid grip. Fuck, he'd thought Brad understood, that he wouldn't have to explain all of it. "Brad, I'm not--"

"Didn't ask if you could get it up," Brad said, shifting down a little to drop kisses along Nate's jawline between words. "Asked if I could go down."

Nate sort of wanted to argue, but Brad was scraping his teeth over the side of Nate's throat, sending little shocks of pleasure to his dick, and he _wanted_ Brad's mouth on him. He wanted to believe it could be enough, could fucking _fix_ him--hell, he just wanted to feel it again after months away. 

"Yeah," Nate managed, and Brad made a quick move, flipping Nate onto his back and settling between his legs. Nate grabbed a pillow to prop himself up and tucked his hands behind his head, trying to make himself relax as Brad mouthed down his chest toward his half-hard dick. Nate closed his eyes, letting himself feel Brad's mouth lingering on his skin, Brad's hands on his hips, coaxing him to curl a little, as if it mattered what angle Brad had him at. He moved where Brad wanted him, going along, spreading his legs wide as Brad shouldered his thighs apart. 

Brad's mouth closed over his dick, taking him to the root all at once, and Nate's eyes flashed open as his breath went out of him; the sudden burst of hot wet electric pleasure was like a punch in the gut, resounding through his entire body. Nate stared blindly at the ceiling until he could make out individual sensations, a rhythmic sucking and Brad's tongue working at the underside of his dick. 

Nate looked down and moaned involuntarily at the sight of Brad sucking his dick, eyes closed in concentration, his nose pressed to Nate's pubes. He wanted it not to be half illusion, wanted to actually have his cock pushing down Brad's throat, but this was startlingly good, too, almost entirely chasing away the niggling awareness that it wouldn't be enough, that he still couldn't....

Brad's hand slid up the inside of Nate's thigh to his balls, and the new sensation combined with the thing Brad was doing with his tongue to make Nate forget why this was pointless. He rocked up against Brad, into his mouth, into his hand, and Brad made an appreciative noise that vibrated around Nate's dick and made him shudder all over and buck harder.

Brad pulled back a little at that, keeping just the head of Nate's dick on his tongue, sucking softly as he played with Nate's balls, and it felt good even as it faded back into not-enough. Nate's next move was just a restless shift, trying to get that startling electric sensation back. Brad made another noise that vibrated through Nate's dick--amused this time, Nate thought. 

Nate opened his eyes to glare just as Brad's hand shifted, pressing up behind Nate's balls, and Nate was vaguely, distantly aware of his mouth falling open and a string of curses pouring out, his toes curling and his dick twitching in Brad's mouth. When he knew for sure what he was saying again it was, "Fuck me, oh, Jesus fuck, fuck, Brad--"

Nate stopped talking with a groan as Brad kept rubbing up against his prostate from the outside. It had never felt like that, the few times he'd tried it himself before giving up. He couldn't ever remember it feeling like that even when they'd been together, before, and he didn't know whether it was long deprivation or being desperately turned on but he knew better than to question it now. 

Nate managed to fold himself sideways without dragging his dick from Brad's mouth, grabbing the fresh bottle of lube he'd left out for almost exactly this purpose. By the time he squirmed back Brad was holding his hand out for it and Nate closed his eyes and almost sobbed, because the shocking pleasure wasn't letting up, was coiling from his ass to his dick, from Brad's hand to Brad's mouth like he just might get off on this.

"Please," Nate managed, but Brad's wet fingers were already tracing over his hole, and Nate made a strangled noise at the slick, cool touch and what it promised.

Brad let go of his dick entirely to say, "You seriously never figured out the workaround?"

"Shut the fuck up and fuck me," Nate managed, which felt like a magnificently sustained burst of coherence under the circumstances. Now was really not the time to go into the frustrating and depressing saga of his not getting off for months on end when maybe, if he'd just tried one more time....

"Mmm," Brad said around his dick, definitely not a _yes sir_ , but he also pressed a finger into Nate, stealing his breath and the last vestiges of words. Brad teased him, working just his fingertip around the tensed ring of muscle, slicking and opening him. Nate's breath kept catching on the little darts of sensation, not overwhelming by themselves, but not letting him forget what this was leading up to, and Brad's mouth was still on his dick, steady pulses of pleasure that wouldn't finish him but wouldn't let him catch his breath. 

Nate started trying to curl his hips to shove his ass onto Brad's fingers, and Brad rewarded him by going all the way down on his dick while easing a finger deeper into his ass, and Nate's breath stopped completely at the jolt of sharply focused pleasure. 

"Yes," he managed, when Brad rocked his finger, "more, yes, yes--" but Brad was already working another finger into him. Nate was vaguely aware of the burning stretch, but he needed this, needed exactly this. When Brad started working over his prostate Nate almost sobbed, disoriented by the dizzying rush and the utter weirdness of the sensation. He could feel his balls drawing up, could feel that he was about to come, and his dick was still easily engulfed in the wet heat of Brad's mouth, still soft even when every inch of his skin was singing, when Nate could hardly breathe over the wild rushing of pleasure toward an end he couldn't quite see.

Nate let out a sound like a sob as it hit him, and he was coming--he could feel the spurt of his dick in Brad's mouth, could feel Brad swallowing around him. Brad's fingers kept working inside him, forcing his orgasm on and on in little spasms and breathless cries. It seemed to go on forever, and finally Nate groaned and pushed Brad away, unsure whether he was still coming or working up to coming again too soon. 

Brad laughed a little and smacked a loud kiss to Nate's hip, then moved away from him. Nate lay dazed and drifting, feeling like he could float right off the bed if he weren't about to fall asleep. Brad came back before it occurred to Nate to miss him, and he laughed a little again and rolled Nate onto his side, snuggling up to his back. Nate made the effort to drape one arm over Brad's and let his eyes close--he could nap now, and maybe his brain would be functioning again to talk properly afterward, or maybe they could just have a lot more sex. 

Brad's laughter shook him again, enough to penetrate Nate's dreamy haze, and Nate was already grinning along with him as he said. "What?"

Brad kissed the back of his neck. "I always thought if I was a very good, very patient Marine, someday I would find a literal example of an officer who couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a map."

Nate felt himself blush, but he felt too good to defend himself against the charge, which maybe had some justice after all. He shook with silent, helpless laughter as Brad went on.

"I just never in a million years thought it'd be you."


End file.
